Is an eastern redbud a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Eastern Redbud can work here, with caveats. Native throughout Indiana and heavily planted, and it is one of the small natives the Indiana Native Plant Society names as a Callery pear replacement, so central Indiana now has a lot of redbuds of very similar age. The ones planted in full sun on hot, compacted, stripped subdivision clay are the ones showing canker earliest — site, not the species, is what separates a 30-year redbud from a 12-year one.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
Very light overall — spent flowers on the drive in late April, small heart-shaped leaves dropping early with no dependable fall color, and flat brown seed pods that hang through winter and blow down. The pods are the actual nuisance: they germinate readily, so a mature redbud seeds volunteers through the beds and lawn every spring.
Where to keep it away from
Redbud puts down a taproot early — it will run horizontally if it hits impenetrable subsoil, which central Indiana clay usually provides — then spreads a fibrous system, and it is not a hardscape threat at any age. The practical consequence is transplanting: established redbuds move badly, so a customer who wants a mature one relocated should be told plainly that it usually fails and a small container-grown replacement is the better spend.
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